World News

YANGON: Myanmar strongman Than Shwe, who ruled with an iron fist for almost two decades, has retired as head of the military after handing power to a nominally civilian government, officials said Monday.

TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON: Hundreds of rebel fighters were pulled out by sea as Muammar Gaddafi’s forces were on the verge of overrunning the key western city of Misrata after routing all opposition attacks on the eastern front, as the country’s strongman and his sons appeared to be looking for a way out of the conflict.

LONDON: The world’s glaciers are melting up to 100 times faster than any time during the last 350 years. The findings, based on a study of Patagonia, South America, have worrying implications for millions of people who rely on the slow moving bodies of ice for fresh water.

TOKYO/FUKUSHIMA: High radiation has seeped into groundwater under the crisis-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, authorities said today, as Japanese and US troops launched an intensive air and sea search for thousands of people who remained unaccounted for after the March 11 quake and tsunami.

TOKYO/FUKUSHIMA: The Japanese Premier, Mr Naoto Kan today favoured decommissioning the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant as radiation seeping into sea from the crippled facility tested 4,385 times higher than the legal limit, amid mounting pressure on the government to expand the evacuation zone.

LONDON: In the first defection by a key aide of the Libyan leader, Mr Muammar Gaddafi to West, the Foreign Minister, Mr Moussa Koussa arrived unexpectedly in Britain and the Foreign Secretary, Mr William Hague declared that the Libyan regime was “crumbling from within”.

DHAKA: Bangladesh is mulling limiting the President’s sweeping powers to declare emergency and promulgate key ordinances under caretaker governments which are installed every five years to conduct general elections.